Horatio Woodman sat for a studio portrait, dressed in a fur hat and scarf. The hat is styled like a Russian Boyer hat, also known as a Gorlatnaya hat, which was popularized by Eastern European nobility during the Early Modern Period (ca. 1500-1800).

Woodman, a native of Buxton, relocated to Boston to study and practice law. Woodman founded the "Saturday Club," a monthly assembly that met at the Parker House in Boston, Massachusetts, that brought together writers, scientists, philosophers, historians, and other distinguished minds of the mid-19th century. Saturday Club members included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell.